June 24, 2007

At the Take Back America conference I attended a session put on by Drew Weston, author of The Political Brain. He takes a Lakoff-style look at the language and narrative, adds a psychologist/neuroscientist look at how the brain works and then turns it all into a practical look at how to use this information in politics.

In his handling of the Swift Boat affair, what Kerry effectively told the American people was what he would do if America were attacked: he would wait an inordinate amount of time until he had gathered enough evidence to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law, use polls and focus groups to see what kind of response Americans preferred, and then write our enemies a letter imploring them to stop their terrorist acts immediately.

Sometimes, the meta-message is the message.

I have ordered the book.

Posted by Dave Johnson at June 24, 2007 7:52 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.seeingtheforest.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.fcgi/3040